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Jayhawks slam overmatched Bruins

Guard Ben McLemore makes a one handed dunk against Belmont at Allen Fieldhouse.

Travis Releford throws down a reverse slam for two of his 17 points against Belmont on Saturday at Allen Fieldhouse.

LAWRENCE — If Belmont truly is better than anyone Kansas will face in the Big 12, well, go ahead and engrave the trophy now.

Some might quibble with that assessment, especially after KU blitzed the Bruins on Saturday at Allen Fieldhouse. Belmont’s statistical profile — the one that had the Bruins ranked No. 23 in one power rating — doesn’t look as glossy after the No. 9 Jayhawks rolled 89-60 to improve to 8-1.

Plenty of good teams have suffered this same fate at Allen Fieldhouse, so declaring Belmont a fraud might be too strong. It’s no stretch to say KU is for real, at least not if the Jayhawks continue at their current pace.

“We’re embarrassed about the performance tonight,” Belmont coach Rick Byrd said, “but Kansas had an awful lot to do with it.”

No one contributed more to the outcome than KU freshman Ben McLemore, who scored 17 points and added to his ever-expanding personal highlight reel.

The dunk everyone will remember was the one that beat the buzzer to end the first half, although Belmont didn’t bother sticking around to watch the free throw that put KU on top 44-28 at intermission.

McLemore had the floor to himself, both teams having jogged to the locker room while the officials debated whether McLemore’s dunk, which completed a length-of-the-court relay in the final seconds of the half, occurred before the buzzer.

Even if the dunk hadn’t counted, it was an apt metaphor for what KU was in the process of doing to Belmont. Officials ultimately upheld it — and the foul on Belmont’s Blake Jenkins — which allowed McLemore to complete the three-point play with zeroes showing on the clock.

“It was kind of weird,” McLemore said. “I felt like there was a lot of pressure on me. I just took my time, took a deep breath and shot the free throw.”

The second half was more of the same. The most frantic sequence involved back-to-back 3-pointers from freshman Andrew White, who set a career high with 15 points in 10 minutes, and back-to-back steals from Travis Releford, who brought down the house with a reverse slam for two of his 17 points.

“That wasn’t one of my better dunks,” Releford said, although no one in the crowd was nitpicking.

The result was another thorough domination from the Jayhawks, whose last 80 minutes of basketball have been as good as anyone reasonably could expect. KU shot 50 percent from the floor, put four players in double figures and dished 25 assists to only 11 turnovers.

“I thought offensively we were very efficient,” coach Bill Self said.

This wasn’t the game Self envisioned when he said Belmont was capable of beating the Jayhawks, not that he was complaining.

Belmont’s struggles were no great mystery. The Bruins, a team that had been shooting a bunch of 3-pointers and hitting them at a 42-percent clip, went 8-for-38 against the Jayhawks.

Having shooters at every spot on the floor meant the Bruins were capable of missing a lot of shots, which didn’t deter them from attempting more.

“At halftime, coach had the stats that they’d shot 17,” Releford said. “He came out and told us at halftime they were going to shoot 35-plus 3s, so we’ve got to come out ready and stay tuned in on defense.”

For the second Saturday in a row, KU made a big lead even bigger with a quick spurt to open the second half.

A matchup that looked good on paper became a massive mismatch on the court, which might say as much about KU as it says about Belmont.

“We feel like our program is at the stage where very often we give people like this all they want and occasionally sneak a win,” Byrd said. “We just couldn’t make this game competitive.”